Native Hawaiian business leaders head to Guam to strengthen economic cooperation

HONOLULU—A delegation of Native Hawaiian business leaders traveled to Guam this week to renew friendships and strengthen economic cooperation.

Ray Jardine representing the Native Hawaiian Organizations Association (NHOA), Billy Ornellas and Austin Nakoa representing the Native Hawaiian Economic Alliance (NHEA), and Robin Danner with the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement (CNHA) joined Guam business leaders to share common experiences.

“One of the initiatives that came out of our Business Forum held in October 2010 in Honolulu, was to unify our efforts around growing business to business connections between small and large firms in Hawaii and the Pacific,” said Ornellas, NHEA vice president. “We know that as island economies, we have many of the same priorities like local hire and growing successful businesses, and infusing our island cultures into everything we do.”

The group included small and large firms from Hawaii and other areas connected by the Pacific Ocean.

“Good business starts with good relationships, said Jardine, NHOA board member. “We are here in Guam the same way we are on Kauai or Oahu back home, to learn, to share, and to listen to each other to identify ways that we can support one another.”

Meetings were held with the Guam Chamber of Commerce, business leaders and university officials, with topics ranging from workforce development strategies, federal government contracting requirements, small business needs, the economy of Guam and the plans and partnerships being forged.

“It is fascinating to listen and to hear in many ways, our own story in Hawaii, right here in Guam and surrounding Pacific Island nations,” said Danner, CEO of CNHA. “The business challenges, as well as the opportunities are near identical—I’m heartened by the passion and determination of Guam’s leaders to be active in shaping their island’s future.”

The Hawaiian organizations shared an initiative that originated from a forum with members of President Barack Obama’s White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (WHIAAPI) in Honolulu in late 2010. Jobs and economic development, as well as cultural integrity ranked high on the priority of leaders around the Pacific at the forum.

“At our forum in Honolulu, we discussed many of the issues I heard here in Guam,” said Danner. “What the leaders came out with is a collaborative approach to doing something meaningful and real about promoting locally owned small business firms. Together, we created the Pacific Business Partnership Initiative to certify our small businesses to the criteria needed by big business to hire them and to certify big business to the criteria of our business and community leaders to work well in our Pacific region.”

NHOA, NHEA and CNHA shared the focus of the Pacific Business Partnership founded in Hawaii with a service area that includes Hawaii, Alaska, and the U.S. Territories of Guam and American Samoa. “We are all connected by one ocean,” said Ornellas. “We are one ocean, one people really, with so much to share with each other, what to avoid and also what has worked well.”

Assistant Secretary of the Office of Insular Affairs, Anthony Babauta, a Guam Native and the highest appointed Pacific Islander official in the Obama Administration attended both forums in Honolulu and Guam. 

“At the end of the day, it’s up to our island leaders to forge pathways, these convenings are a great start,” Babauta said. “The talent in the Pacific is immense, and by working together, business and community leaders from the major island regions can implement many of the solutions to the priorities of their people no matter where they live in the Pacific.”

Another common factor in Guam and in Hawaii is the interest and partnership of other Native community enterprises, including tribal corporations and Alaska Native corporations. Tribes and their community enterprises have been implementing successful business strategies to support their cultural life ways and address a myriad of socio-economic needs in Native areas across the country.

“Native cultures in our state, like Pacific island cultures, share a common respect and responsibility for the sea, for the land and for the people,” said Barney Uhart, the CEO of Chugach Alaska, a Native-owned business enterprise with contracts located across the globe. “We believe in local partnerships, in not only good corporate citizenship wherever our businesses are located, but we also know that we have a responsibility to share our experience and knowledge over the last 20 years of taking hold of our economic destiny by engaging in business enterprises that embrace the values and culture of our Native community owners.”

Chugach-Alaska hosted the gathering in Guam, where the company has 200 employees and sponsors local nonprofits such as Hurao Academy, a Chamorro language school dedicated to youth and families perpetuating Chamorro language and culture.